


Jera, in opposition

by bleedcolor, hippocrates460



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU of Deathly Hallows, Ancient Runes, M/M, Magical Theory, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:21:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23876854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bleedcolor/pseuds/bleedcolor, https://archiveofourown.org/users/hippocrates460/pseuds/hippocrates460
Summary: RaidhoRiding seems easy to every warrior while he is indoorsand very courageous to him who traverses the high-roadson the back of a stout horse.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Comments: 23
Kudos: 100
Collections: Snape Bigbang 2019





	Jera, in opposition

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you endlessly to Moth for sharing your wisdom and resources, to Mice for your help, to all the best and loveliest people who helped proofread/cheerlead/keep me on task.  
> And [Bleed](https://bleedcolor.tumblr.com/post/616665486594375680/art-created-for-the-lovely-hippocrates460-and-her): You utter rockstar. You made me feel loved and seen with your offer to help, and then you went and created the best, the most stunning, affecting, heart-wrenching portraits of both of our boys. Defiant and worried and the weight of the whole world on their shoulders - your art is better than I could have dreamed. I can't thank you enough.  
> (Please note: Harry has been aged up a year, he is 18 throughout the fic)

**1980**

Severus Snape has very recently lost his faith when he is charged with raiding the house of some poor sod who was tortured to death by either Rabastan or Lestrange. He wants to know, and care, and can’t seem to find the energy. In the end the result is the same anyway. The old man is dead, his house is empty, his wards have fallen. 

Three eighteen-year-olds stare at him, awe, arrogance, and boredom. He tells Awe to take the basement, Arrogance to take the grounds, and Boredom to search the attic. All three places will almost certainly give them nothing. He takes the first floor himself, and starts in the bedroom. It still smells of fear and he wrinkles his nose as he searches for things well-loved, well-used, and well-hidden. 

In the locked top drawer of an ancient desk that looks to be in immaculate condition, in the third room he searches, Severus finds something truly interesting. It’s a time turner, that much is clear, but it looks ancient and complicated. He doesn’t touch the dials but traces the runes carefully. Thinks of the mess he’s in, the mess he’s created, the black ravine he sees when he tries to imagine a way out. He wishes there were someone who has been through this that might help him, that there was somewhere to go. 

The little stamp at the back is a bit hard to see, but when it catches the light just right, Severus freezes. Aion, god of unbounded time. His hands shake as he tucks the time turner away in his pocket. It would not do for the Dark Lord to have possession of something so old and powerful. 

The rest of his search is - at best - perfunctory. He makes sure to have plenty of memories of rifling through drawers to be able to hand something over in case he is questioned, and then checks up on his charges.

Boredom is sitting in the attic, in the middle of the floor, and lights little fires that he then puts out with a flat hand. Severus hurls his confusion and fear out at the boy until he looks terrified instead of bored. Prays fervently that they do not find anything else of interest. 

***

**1995**

When Harry opens his eyes he is in the Great Hall, which is good. He was in the Room of Requirement a second ago, calculating the stupid runes with the book he’s nicked from Hermione. Rune tables are absurd. He breathes in and out. He is where he should be. He has learned his lesson though, the right place does not mean the right time. He looks around with care, and hides in a little alcove to contemplate putting on his Invisibility Cloak. When there is no one around, the fastest way to find out where he’s ended up is to go to Hogsmeade and find a newspaper. Harry is still thinking about it when the door slams open and his question is answered for him. Snape. Wearing the robes he wore as a Potions Master. Not the time he was hoping for at all. What has he done wrong this time? Maybe the Kenaz cancels out the multiplication? 

He turns the time turner’s dials to Perthro and Algiz with a sigh, and then the last one to Raidho. No need to do anything else. Home again. Before the world around him dissolves he catches a glimpse of a younger Ron, and then Hermione. Younger-him is with them, around sixteen years old, judging by the Prefect badges on the robes of his friends. He watches himself scratch at an armpit and yawn and is grateful when he’s back in the Room of Requirement. Ugh.

***

**1997**

Snape wakes up with a headache for the ages. It had appeared out of nowhere, like he’d been hit in his sleep by something particularly heavy, and it had made his day even more unpleasant than all the other unpleasant ones he’d been having of late. He almost misses the hint of a shoe, passing by him as two corridors cross each other, and he strikes like he’s seen prey.

“Get away from here,” he hisses. “What happens when the Dark Lord finds a way to make it through Hogwarts’ wards? What if he finally decides gone is gone and anyone can have you?” Potter rolls his eyes, as if he’s entirely unconcerned. “That time turner does not have endless sand!” he hisses. “Besides,” Severus adds, hoping he sounds dangerous, “it can’t help you if you’re dead.”

“Sure,” Potter breathes out slowly as he says it and Severus starts feeling like he’s roiling, like he can hear the tell-tale clicking of a rod in a potion that’s about to boil over. Just because Potter had snuck back into the castle with his ill-conceived little plans and his ill-mannered little friends does not mean that he is the lord of the manor all the sudden. He’s about to tell Potter exactly what he’d like to do to him, and what he definitely _will_ do if Potter spoils his cover, when a single thought becomes laughably obvious on his face. _None of the dignity a Headmaster should have_. 

“Go. To. Dinner!” Severus demands, before he actually kills the boy, for _still_ not bothering with Occlumency if nothing else, and a flick of his wand has Potter sliding down the hall. “And for Merlin’s sake cover yourself!” Potter does as he’s told. But acts like it was his idea.

The boy is smart enough to stay away from the Great Hall during meal times at least, so Severus gets to observe the Weasleys’ plotting. It’s a bit amusing, how they think they’re safe because they used one of _his_ spells to block the noise from their conversation. As if their lips can’t be read. As if spells can’t be subverted. From what he gathers, the boy hasn’t told his compatriots about Severus’ allegiance or the time turner, which suits him just fine. 

They discuss their little rebellion in hushed tones, sweaty terrified teenagers just old enough to cast a shield charm without needing a hearty lay-down afterwards. Severus runs into Potter soon after dinner, because Potter is predictable. He’s in the kitchens with Granger, looking worried and pale while she rambles on about homework and finding out which teachers might be able to help. If she notices the far-away look on his face, she doesn’t mention it. Severus leaves again before either of them, or heavens forbid, one of the House-elves, notices him. 

***

**1968**

His next attempt works better. He thinks. Dumbledore looks younger at least, when he walks past. That he’s alive is already a victory of time traveling. The point me spell Harry uses, however, leads him not to anywhere in the castle, but out of school bounds, and then in jumps of Apparition to a place called Cokeworth. There’s a strange hush to the air, from the fog hanging over the town perhaps. Harry doesn’t know what to do with the stench or the desperation on the faces he passed before he found this park. He sits down on a swing set when he gets very tired and lazily pushes himself back and forth. Shivers in his winter robes gratefully at the wind that blows right through everything. He remembers doing this during endless summers in Little Whinging. Just as he’s thinking it, Petunia walks up. 

It’s a strange moment. Not unlike being slapped in the face with a rotten vegetable. Harry didn’t want to be talked to by a small person but he saw that coming from the determined way with which she charges at him, and then he finds out that there’s a more unpleasant surprise still. 

“ _You’re_ not allowed here,” Petunia… Evans, surely, she barely reaches up to his hip, states. Demanding and familiar in all the wrong ways. “You’re a boy.”

“I’m an adult,” Harry corrects her. “So you don’t get to tell me what to do.” It’s not quite as satisfying as he imagines it might be to tell the grown-up Petunia the same thing, but it’ll have to do for now.

“Ignore her,” comes from behind him, and that’s… worse. Definitely worse. Lily looks like her sister, in the same way a flower looks like a child’s drawing of a flower. It’s obvious they’re supposed to be more similar, and it didn’t quite work out that way. Something about her nose, her cheekbones.

“She’s a Muggle,” a teeny tiny Severus says, stepping out from behind Lily. He looks miserable, greasy and pale but also unwashed and in ill-fitting clothes. Instead of thinking about what it might mean that Snape grew up with his mum, Harry focuses on his words. Already thinking that being a Muggle might be enough to be ignored? Seems Snape started young, Harry thinks, rather uncharitably. 

“And how do you know I’m not?” Harry challenges him, and then he remembers he’s wearing his school robes, and he winces. He’s actually, now that he’s thinking about it, also holding his wand.

Lily and Severus laugh at him, and Harry forgets all about Petunia until he hears a huff and some stomping behind him. They’re desperately young, Harry wouldn’t know where to begin at guessing their age, but they can’t be at Hogwarts yet. “Scratch that, of course,” he says. 

They look bright, and fragile. Too young to contain all the potential of real people. Harry looks at them, watches as Snape suppresses a shiver, and starts feeling around his pockets for his scarf before he can stop himself. He hands it over and gets to see an expression he couldn’t have imagined on little Snape’s face. It looks out of place on a child, but even more so knowing how Snape looks at him as an adult. Appreciation is too mild, but Harry doesn’t know what to call it instead. 

It’s not even a nice scarf. Hermione made it, so it’s got three different types of wool and sure it’s soft and warm, but that’s about the only positive things you can say about it. Harry shakes his head. “Keep it,” he says. Much as he would love to stay where no one is yelling at him and the world is oddly quiet, he really can’t. He tells them both goodbye, and then, figuring they know about magic anyways, resets the time turner.

***

**1962**

He’s not sure why the next one is worse, but it is. Snape, it turns out, was born in Cokeworth, and not in the nice part of it either. When he is two years old, he bumps into Harry’s knees. He seemed reasonably steady on his feet, earlier, when he’d been running around in the street in front of the crooked little house at Spinner’s End. But then Harry fixed the deflated ball he’d been throwing around for him, and Snape had been so delighted he hadn’t watched where he was going. Harry picks him up when he starts wailing, sitting on his bum on the street, and gets a slap from a fat little hand as thanks. Baby Snape smells sour already, and Harry rings the doorbell. Nothing happens for a while, so he chats at little Snape a bit.

Finally, a woman that could only be Eileen Snape opens the door, looking even unhappier than she did in the one picture Harry had seen of her, last year. “Your child,” Harry says, handing a mostly calm again Snape over. Then he summons the ball. “Oh, and this.” 

Eileen pales, and Harry isn’t sure what he’s done wrong until the windows start rattling. Not with anyone’s magic but with some very angry fists. He steps back. Shouldn’t have used his wand here. Doesn’t know what to say to fix it.

He resets the time turner.

***

**1997**

Severus feels so awful in the evening that he retires to bed early. He worries there might be a summons coming, from the sheer dread he is experiencing, and instead dreams of a ball he used to have as a child. There’s a feeling of dread under his breastbone, and when he wakes up he feels a sudden need to find the scarf he used to have as a child. It is still soft, and warm in the way only things made with love can be, if threadbare enough he cannot justify walking around with it as a headmaster. 

He picks through his robes, and gets dressed slowly, trying not to jostle his head or neck or shoulders. Everything hurts. He keeps the scarf in his pocket, and touches it occasionally throughout the day. 

Potter is staring at him, and following him around too, judging by the pricking in his neck and not-quite-muffled footsteps. The blithering _fool_.

“Is Snape wearing something new?” he hears the boy ask. They are three in the kitchen today, for lunch.

“Not this again,” Weasley groans. “Not everything is some great big conspiracy, Harry. You say he’s on our side, he’s on our side. We have to stop questioning it.”

Potter makes a disagreeing noise and Severus gives himself a minute to very vividly imagine ripping the time turner out of the boys hands and using it to go back to the start of the semester. When Potter had barely left the train before he was caught by the Carrows. Shouldn’t have intervened then. Maybe he wouldn’t be having these headaches now if he’d just let things progress as they would.

When his minute is up he gets back to work. Plenty to do.

***

**1994**

Harry’s recent lack of success makes him careful about going back to before Snape was even born. This time however, he ends up not far enough in the past. Snape is in the castle, in the teacher’s lounge, and when Harry looks out the window, he sees Durmstrang’s ship on the Black Lake. Bloody hell.

Snape is nursing a cup of tea though, by the fire, and McGonagall, who Harry walked in with after checking he was properly covered by the cloak, walks over to him. Smiles at him. It’s probably been a while since McGonagall has smiled at Snape like that, Harry muses, and he can’t help but watch as she stands in front of him, holding her own mug.

“You’ve not been sleeping well, have you?” she says, quite kindly. Snape makes a face and a noise of disapproval. “Alright, I won’t mention it,” she laughs around a sip of tea. “Actually I was wondering if you could help me with something? I want to talk to Albus about the Quidditch teams. Do these children have to take flying lessons again now? I was thinking we could at least allow practice and some friendly matches.”

“Yes,” Snape agrees, and to Harry’s surprise he waves at the chair next to him. They talk about Quidditch a while and laugh together, and even Flitwick joins them at some point. 

Harry knows he doesn’t have time to hang around, to wait for Snape to be alone, and still struggles to pull away. He sets the time turner but as he disappears he looks at Snape, who is being looked at like he might be an equal. Who grins at McGonagall’s jokes. Who helps Flitwick to tea he can’t reach and receives a pat on his knee as a thanks. 

***

**1997**

Potter doesn’t attend classes, but Granger and Weasley do. Granger uses a cheap invisibility cloak, good enough to stay hidden if she doesn’t move too much. Which makes Weasley the easiest to follow. He makes a lot of noise as he walks, and invariably leads Severus to where the others are. 

Which is how he finds himself slipping into the Room of Requirement after them. He spends a dreadfully boring hour waiting for them to do something interesting, and then when they gasp, he almost knocks over a towering stack of… Closer inspection reveals no logic or order. Something.

With some reverence they lift a mannequins head and place it on the ground, and then Weasley says, very seriously: “We’ll need to find the basilisk.” 

They are triumphant enough the next day that Severus has to assume that they succeeded in whatever they were hoping to do, but their determined jaws tell him there’s more to come. A week or so later _more_ gets dumped at his feet.

“I need to get out of Hogwarts,” Potter demands, his invisibility cloak hanging open as if it’s a fashion choice. 

“... is what I keep telling you.” 

“No,” he says. “I need a way in and out. A safe one, no Death Eaters pacing up and down like by the gates.”

Snape sighs. “I was under the impression that you had several secret passages that you’ve been using for your...” he motions with his hands as he looks for a word that says adventure while being undeniable negative. “Escapades.” He knows he’ll think of a better synonym before bedtime but it’ll have to do. Not like Potter would appreciate his witty repartee anyway.

“They’ve collapsed,” Potter’s eyes are on fire, like he’s ready for a fight, and he looks at Severus like he’ll go through him if he must. It’s a lot of energy that the situation doesn’t really call for.

“Show me,” Severus offers. “I’ll see what I can do.”

The castle, of course, has no issues listening to its Headmaster, and with Potter’s added strength, they reopen a passage in half an hour. Severus legs it, wanting to get as far away as possible, before Potter decides to do something stupid like thank him.

They smell like goat, the next time he sees them. They also look dejected, and he decides he has other things to worry about.

***

**1979**

The next attempt has Harry sneaking around in his cloak through some creaky old mansion. He can smell the decay. The only reason he knows where to go is because he followed some spotty-faced arsehole through the wards and now down the stairs into a creepy basement. The arsehole presents his left forearm, hisses _hello_ in shit Parseltongue like it’s a cool secret password, proving once and for all that he is an arsehole, and Harry comes through the door with him. 

There are six gangly people sitting around a table in the grotty basement. They greet each other with nicknames, as if everyone in the Wizarding World doesn’t know each other from school. Snape, to Harry’s surprise, is one of the loudest voices, proclaiming that Muggles should be kept separate from Wizards, that Wizards should be free to live their lives as they want to. It solves the question of where his alliance currently lies, and Harry briefly contemplates leaving, until he realises he finds this interesting. Snape doesn’t look to be all that much older than Harry is, which shouldn’t be a surprise, but somehow still is. As if being the same age shifts their dynamic in some meaningful way.

The six plan an attack on a family Harry’s never heard of before. He’s pretty sure that’s a bad thing, but that’s not what he’s here for. It takes him almost embarrassingly long to look around at the other people in the room, and then he has a very interesting thought. The one that looks like Sirius is very tempting right now. Harry hits both Snape and Regulus with a pants-wetting spell, and nearly laughs as they both suppress looks of surprise and fear. As expected, they tell the others to go on without them, and then try to get the other to leave so they can clean up in peace. When the last of the currently-irrelevant gangly people has left, Harry closes the door. Locks it from the inside, casts some nice wards. Sits down before remembering to take off his cloak. Hastily pushes the chair back a bit, away from the light, so that his Hogwarts robes aren’t quite so obvious.

“What the - ” Snape growls, standing up, his wand raised. 

“The _Dark_ _Lord_ ,” Regulus threatens, and Harry can’t help but laugh. 

“How do you know he is not the one that sent me?” Harry mocks, and he watches them doubt themselves. He also watches them realise why their pants are wet, again almost exactly at the same time. “Now, Black, Snape. Sit.”

They do sit, and Harry tries to remember very hard when Regulus defected but he can’t really take the risk. He gives them each a Basilisk’s tooth, wrapped up in stained cloth, and tells them that when the time comes to destroy the indestructible, use it.

“Don’t talk to anyone about this,” Harry makes them swear they won’t. “Not each other, not me, not the Dark Lord, you _never_ know who is listening.” He’s already standing when he thinks of something else. “If you’re duplicating something,” he says, explaining it as he would to a four-year-old, “it’s Ge-mi-ni-o, and for Merlin’s sake think of your wand movements.” He disappears from the room then, knowing that the fact that he made it through anti-apparition wards with apparently zero effort will impress these boys. When he gets back to the Room of Requirement, he can’t help but laugh. He didn’t make it to the time he wanted to be in, but he might actually pull this off.

***

**1997**

Severus knows when things are happening in his castle. And something is making his skin tingle. He walks through the corridors, hops over a missing step in a secret passage, and Disillusions himself before he steps out from behind the suit of armor. It smells rather pungent in here, and Weasley is fighting off both Carrows by himself, as a third year student hides behind him. A Slytherin, nonetheless. Severus has had a headache brewing for a while, and the bright lights of spells being swapped back and forth makes him wince. Weasley couldn’t possibly be the one doing all of this, he thinks, and then he notices the glimpse of feet, as well as the shimmer of a cheap invisibility cloak. Always nice to see the musketeers together.

That night he has the strangest dream. The memory he has of getting a basilisks tooth, the very one he has on him right now, bubbles to the front of his mind. As if it’s not been fully processed, even if it’s been almost twenty years since that day at Rookwood’s aunt’s manor. The strange man that had threatened and bullied Regulus and him but stayed in the shadows the whole time nags on his mind. His head aches.

He threatens the Carrows, that night. Tells them about how displeased the Dark Lord will be if they continue to frighten children enough to cry. The Carrows exchange a look at that, and Snape decides to let it slide. What he cares about is protecting the little imbeciles that he is in charge of. When he’s done he notices Albus staring at him from his painting. 

“You’re doing so well, my boy,” he says, and Snape wants to hex him into tomorrow and burn the whole fucking tower down but he throws his favourite whiskey glass against the wall instead. It shatters, and somehow that makes the floor creak. He turns around to see if something is wrong, but then Dumbledore catches his attention again. “You’ll have to tell him - you know. You say his task is progressing. Once he gets further you’ll have to - ”

“Yes.” Severus interrupts him. “Tell him of his fate, remind him of his position, the prophecy, as if I could forget.” He wants to say more but then he hears the stairs to his office moving. When he looks out the door however, there is no one to be found.

That night he overhears the strangest conversation. Potter comforts his screaming House-elf, who cries about Master Regulus, and a locket? It’s bizarre and he is sore. He remembers this House-elf, and the way Potter used to speak to him, but he sounds different now. “Kreacher,” he interrupts the wailing. “You did so well,” he promises, his voice gentle, soothing deep hurt and wounded grief. “Your master made a mistake, and he would not have been able to fix it without you. You were invaluable.”

The nasty elf insults Potter’s parentage, but that too sounds different. He doesn’t seem to be feeling it anymore. It’s like his heart’s not in it. 

***

**1974**

Harry has a few more failed attempts. Once he finds Snape and his mum, looking to be about thirteen, lying in the grass by the dirty Cokeworth river, looking at the sky. “D’you think forever exists?” Lily muses.

“Not sure,” Snape answers, looking small and skinny and dirty. Evil beady eyes. “I find it scary either way.”

Lily hums, so different to him from her open eyes and face and bright shining heart. “I think it’s a choice,” she decides finally. “Mum says that, but I think she’s right. You have to choose every day to do all the small things and wait for them to add up.”

“Good to know,” Snape has a glint in his eyes that Harry doesn’t know what to do with, until he laughs. Not evil at all. “When will your first book be available, oh great and mighty philosopher?”

Lily laughs too, easier and brighter than him. “Sev!” she complains, and she pushes with her shoulder against his, still laughing, “you’ll not get a signed copy like this for sure.”

To Harry’s great surprise Snape tilts his head back, and laughs. A proper real belly-laugh. “Oh no,” he gasps, “forgive me. What will I do?” 

Lily laughs along with him, just as bright and happy, “suffer forever of course!” 

And then Harry disappears.

***

**1997**

Severus tries to find a way to keep track of what is causing these headaches, the rolling nausea when he remembers emotions like through stained glass. The outline is there, but the details are missing, and the more he tries to see, the more his body warns him that some things are not meant for his eyes. He writes down everything he can think of, one day, every thought he remembers having, and from then on he checks the scroll every day to make sure it is still there. It is - until it isn’t. 

He wakes up with a headache again, and when he stumbles to the desk he kept his scroll in, he already feels the memory of writing it fade, so he’s not surprised to find the drawer emptier than he thinks it should be. The headache crescendos to an insistent high-pitched whine as he rifles through the drawer anyway, dizzy and blind with vertigo, until the noise becomes too much to bear and he tips over. He doesn’t realise he’s on the floor until he tries to push away from it again and it feels cold and rough against his palms. It’s too much. The world goes dark.

When he wakes on the floor he is shivering and cold, but the headache is gone. All that’s left is an uncomfortable pressure. He goes to by the fire in the kitchens, as invisible as he can make himself, and enjoys the rhythm of the noise around him. Until it gets interrupted.

“I can’t believe I’m the first one to tell you this,” Granger groans, before the portrait entrance has even properly closed behind them. Only Weasley is visible, but they’re not letting that stop them. “See this is why - ”

“Hermione,” Weasley interrupts her. “The topic.” 

“Yes,” she agrees. “Runes have _meaning_ , Harry.”

“And a value,” Potter insists. “For arithmancy.” Which is greatly beyond what Severus had expected him to know about Runes. He closes his eyes and leans back in his chair. 

***

**1992**

Harry thinks about what Hermione had told him. He’s glad they seem to be buying his story of potentially needing old magic to open something like the cave again and scared to say too much because they know a different story than he does now, don’t they? At least they trust him to care about ending this war. Ehwaz and Hagalaz have a similar meaning and a different value, when you calculate with them you have to consider that, she’d said. Nauthiz and Mannaz might be similar in value but they have opposite meanings. You have to consider what you want to achieve.

When he looks at his charts again, alone in the Room of Requirement, Perthro and Algiz suddenly make a lot more sense: something about the future, and protection. Raidho too, for journey, seems quite obvious. A safe journey back to the future. When he recalculates the numbers, he tries to match them to runes that make sense rather than ones that just add up. Hagalaz makes sense, and Uruz is perfect but really doesn’t fit. Berkano fits but doesn’t make sense at all. Tiwaz and Eihwaz balance out with Hagalaz though. A victory, transformation, and communication. He spins.

Harry watches Snape teach from the back of the classroom, after sneaking in with his next class. Third years, he’d say. He doesn’t think he recognises anyone.

When the class leaves, however, the door clicks shut behind the last child, right before Harry can slip out. A big gust of wind makes his cloak flap, and he knows the game is up.

“You,” Snape hisses, right in his face. Harry isn’t sure which _you_ they’re talking about, but Snape’s not wrong.

“Me,” he agrees. 

“You mock me, you haunt me, you come and then you disappear. You wear a face that doesn’t belong to you, you have eyes that are not yours,” Snape steps closer and closer. He’s never been pretty, but right now he looks surprisingly healthy and clean, if angry beyond what Harry has ever seen. Harry backs away. Fidgets with the dials while keeping an eye on Snape. Sighs when the world shifts.

***

**1997**

Snape wakes up with a mind-melting headache and a sort of epiphany. _Potter_. Of course. Part of him wonders whether anyone else has been experiencing sudden headaches and resurfacing of memories that should have been dealt with a long time ago, but really he knows that Potter is the type to spite him in particular.

He can’t find Potter, though. He walks through the castle, up and down, and never catches a glimpse of those poorly-covered feet. The castle doesn’t register Potter as a threat, apparently, even if it lets him find the Carrows at all times, it won’t take him to the brat. Sometimes he catches a hint of something, but then it’s gone again.

One night in the library, he sees Madam Pince pack up a huge stack of books about Runes. She frowns at him, he knows she doesn’t trust him and he wishes with a depth of desire that surprises him that the surly old library keeper he never particularly got on with would just _remember him_. As he was, as he is, that someone would see him as he is. Potter is long gone.

A few days later he sees a book on the table by the fire in the kitchen. Prawirangara on Time. A classic, he knows. With practical advice on balancing your Runes. No Potter. Must have left already.

***

**1979**

That book that Madam Pince had found him tells him setting the location to where he wants to actually go can help, and making sure his mental intention is clear and the timing of his adjustments to the time turner is solid helps too. He wants to find Snape, which is not a place, but he tries to work out how to make it close to Snape anyway. If nothing else it’ll help save sand if he doesn’t have to _point me_ his way across the British Isles. 

It takes endless puzzling because now he can’t use the location as the basis for his calculation anymore, but finally he has something that works. On paper at least. Gebo and Ehwaz for partnership, and Mannaz for cooperation. 

Harry has decided to skip dinner, but brought up some food to eat while he works. He munches on his treacle tart as he does his calculations, then brushes his hands off, and stands up. He sets the time turner to all the right runes, then thinks of Snape, of what he’s looked like throughout the years, of all the things that have never changed. Deep dark eyes. 

He becomes aware of an overwhelming noise before anything else. Is grateful that he decided to wear his cloak even if he has to hang on to it with the hand he’d rather use for his wand in order to make sure he doesn’t lose it on the way. Can’t tell where he is, what sort of people he’s surrounded by. There’s a press of bodies that sweeps him up with it, and Harry spells his glasses invisible and his scar gone before taking off the cloak in the space between two pinball machines. The spells won’t hold for long but it’ll have to do. 

He’s in a pub, he decides, when he looks around. A very busy one. It’s Muggle, judging by the telly hanging over the bar and - in hindsight, the pinball machines - and the atmosphere is a happy one. Someone wearing a shirt that says UK Gay Pride Rally 1978 bumps into him, and Harry frowns. “You got a problem, mate?” the man shouts, and Harry is quick to shake no.

“Lost my friend!” he says. This man is tall, maybe he knows. “Sour looking fellow, black hair? Tall and skinny.”

The man laughs. “Up there?” He nods to the stage where, indeed, Snape is standing between four other men, shouting into a microphone. It’s almost impossible to hear what they’re supposed to be singing, but the tune is a bit familiar now that Harry thinks about it. When the song seems to be coming to a close, Harry elbows his way over to the stage, remembering only at the last moment to Transfigure his clothes into something that doesn’t scream Hogwarts. He’s crap at these spells, his trousers are too tight, his shirt too loose, and the jacket he’s tried to make from his robes looks like a charity shop would hand it back with a polite no thank you. But he looks up at the stage, and Snape looks right at him, and when he reaches out his hand, Snape takes it and jumps down. Everyone around them cheers, and Harry blushes when he realises it’s not because the song is over. 

Snape takes the lead, pulls him through the crowd to a slightly quieter corner, and presses Harry against the wall. He’s drunk enough to be unstable, drunk enough apparently not to notice much about Harry at all, because he starts kissing him like he’s wanted this his whole life. 

Harry isn’t all too sure what to do, but he kisses back anyway. Best not anger Snape now. He even lets Snape work his hands into his trousers, cup his arse, start licking at his neck. It feels good, and Harry groans into it. The smell of stale beer and Snape’s shampoo surrounds him, and suddenly he aches for more. When their hips start bumping and rolling together, however, he stops Snape with a hand to his face. Looks at him, his deep eager eyes.

“Can’t go to my place,” Snape says, as if that’s what Harry was asking. 

“Mine either,” he answers. He doesn’t have anywhere to stay in the 1970s. Early 80s? Who knows.

“Dangerous outside,” Snape continues kissing his neck, and Harry’s eyes flutter closed. His hips stutter forward and it’s so _good_. “Can’t stay out all night anyway,” he seems to mumble to himself, and his fingers on Harry’s arse tighten so Harry pushes his own hands under Snapes’ shirt. He’s hot and sweaty and bony.

Hotel?” Harry gasps, thinking maybe he’ll get to lick the ridges of the spine under his hands if he asks very nicely. 

“Looking like this?” Snape laughs a little, all incredulous, and Harry realises for the first time that the shabbiness of his clothes makes him fit right in. Snape is right. His laugh is delicious, his neck is warm. Snape pulls away then, suddenly a bit serious. “You know this is just... we’re not going to be all happily ever after.”

Harry laughs out loud at the absurdity of the idea, and Snape doesn’t seem the least bit offended. Resumes his enthusiastic kissing. He grunts and groans as he comes rutting against Harry’s thigh, and Harry comes too, more from surprise than from friction. They kiss a bit more, after, but then Harry’s pants start to get cold as well as sticky and he needs to _leave_. It’s not even the right year. He definitely won’t succeed if he stays in this bar swapping saliva with Snape. He crawls under the pooltable after Snape kisses him one last time, and hides under his cloak before disappearing.

His watch on the table shows almost no time has actually passed at all. He turns it over, traces the inscription _For Harry, Happy 18th, Love Molly and Arthur_. He’s too worn and confused to go again though, but the tickle of the lines under his thumb calm him down enough so he can drag himself to the tower. Harry sleeps through the night, that night. For the first time in at least a year. Vows the next morning to never think of this again, after he’s gotten rid of his ruined pants and the bright bruises on his neck. Pushes it down, lest Snape sees the memory. He hadn’t planned for this anyway, hadn’t intended for it to happen. He hides it, tucks it away, buries it under the rubble of his mind. The knowledge of how kissing can apparently be more than just wet slots in right next to all the other things he never wants another soul to know about. There. It’s gone.

***

**1997**

Severus wakes up too sore to sit up, let alone go about his day. He summons a potion for the pain and drinks it all down before lying back. He stares at the drapings of the bed, and realises that Potter has been fucking with the timeline again. And this time he… Severus groans. How could he have done that? Gone to that bar, knowing the dangers. Kissed a stranger, a stranger with familiar green eyes nonetheless. He can’t place the irritation battling with the really rather fond memory. 

Luckily he doesn’t have to for long, duty calls, it is time for breakfast.

Potter of course, is nowhere to be found. By the time Severus has finally accepted just how furious he is, not with himself for once, but with Potter, who must have known, who surely recognised, who seems to be on a mission to - 

“GET YOUR FEET OFF THE TABLE MALFOY THIS IS NOT SOME BROTHEL!” He barely feels better after shouting, which is concerning in and off itself, and keeps up his pace as he rushes up all the way to the Room of Requirement. Which won’t let him in.

***

**1972**

The next evening he decides that showing up wherever Snape is might be more dangerous than it’s worth, considering how long it had taken him to figure out whether he was surrounded by Death Eaters or not. So he recalculates based on the Great Hall, again. Jera works with Uruz but Ingwaz is definitely not what he wants. Or is it? He decides to give it a go. Hopes _the beginning of all this_ is good enough.

It isn’t. He can tell immediately. That - over there. That’s his father. Unmistakable. He has that special air of well-loved and doted over. It reminds Harry of Malfoy a little, how everything about his things looks well-made well-suited and just nice. Sirius has a manic edge already, which is an interesting confirmation that it wasn’t all Azkaban that made him how he was by the end. They are, unfortunately, extraordinarily small. Harry walks around them with a nice wide margin and trudges up the stairs, looking for somewhere to disappear from. He realises when he turns into the corridor that someone is waiting in front of the Room of Requirement, curled up in a little ball. He decides to pretend that he knows what he’s doing, takes three steps back around the corner, and takes off his cloak. Stuffs it in his pocket. “Not working?” he asks, as nonchalantly as he can manage. Only barely suppresses his surprise when Snape looks up. Bit unfortunate, this.

“No,” Snape complains. 

“Maybe it’s because of me,” Harry offers, and he reaches out his hand. The door appears, and when he opens it his things aren’t there, but the set up of the room is the same he’s always had it. The large window on the far wall, the desk he likes to use, the sofa by the fireplace. Someone makes a little noise, and Harry looks over his shoulder, and then down.

Snape has not yet learned to be inconspicuous, it seems. He has stood up, is craning his neck. When he catches Harry looking at him he scowls. “That’s not how it normally looks.”

“I’m not sure there is a normal for this room,” Harry admits. “Would you like to come see how it looks right now?”

Snape is inside before he can say anything else, his bag clutched in a fist that Harry realises after a while holds it together. Snape is staring out the window, walking past the walls, looking at the fire. “There wasn’t a chimney here before,” he accuses.

“Magic,” Harry shrugs. The Room of Requirement is beyond his comprehension. “Do you want me to teach you a spell to fix things?”

Snape jerks his head up, it’d look arrogant if it didn’t look so out of place on his young soft face. “I know _Reparo_ ,” he intones, “how old do you think I am? Eleven?”

That’s exactly what Harry was thinking, but maybe Snape is in his second year now? “Well you’ll understand my confusion,” Harry fights not to smile at the indignance, “seeing how you haven’t actually cast it yet.”

Snape puts the bag on the desk with a _clunk_. It’s immediately obvious why Reparo wouldn’t work. The bag looks like it’s been put through the worst of what teenagers do to things at least twice, and that might not be a wrong assessment. After all, he used his mum’s Potions book, and he lived in whatever you’d call Spinner’s End. “You try it,” Snape challenges. Like he doesn’t hope it’ll work.

“I find,” Harry says, wanting to be gentle and knowing that aloof will work better, “that being specific works better. What’s bag in Latin?”

Snape thinks on that. “ _Saccus_ , or _pera_ , but I wouldn’t know which one would be appropriate here.”

“I can’t help you with that,” Harry says, and the way Snape had looked up at him, the glimmer of hope and I might learn something today is gone again. “We’re counting on you to know your Latin for this.”

That works. Snape stands up a little straighter and looks very serious. “I’d say _pera_ , then, because _saccus_ seems to be used more often for bags you wear inside your clothing.” Harry makes a go-for-it motion. “ _Pera Reparo_ ,” Snape intones, looking at the bag. His wand movement is a little wobbly, but the fire in him helps and the bag stitches itself up. Snape’s whole face lights up for a second, and he looks up at Harry like he wants approval or praise for having done well.

“Very good,” Harry promises. “Can you try again for me, but make your wand movement a little smoother? It helps if you make it bigger until you get the hang of it, even if it looks a bit silly. You can always make them smaller again once you’ve gotten the hang of it.”

Snape tries and at least one of the patches that was on his bag falls off, showing smooth fabric underneath. Harry holds up his hand for a high five, and remembers immediately that of course Snape won’t know what that is, and also of course Snape would misinterpret the gesture. Harry steps back. 

“Sorry,” he offers. “It’s a celebration thing, I hold up my hand like so.” He takes care to move slowly this time, “and you slap your hand against it.” Snape does it, but his face is working.

“How’d you know?” he says finally, dark eyes uncannily clever and deep. He’s still got his childhood accent a bit. His back is straight with pride over his spell, and his face is tight with knowing Harry saw him flinch.

Harry bites his lip. Fuck. “I’m…” he looks for words that don’t give too much away. “I’m really good at divination,” he says finally. Poor Snape snorts. Slaps a hand over his face. 

“Pull the other one,” he says, childish and rude.

“I am!” Harry protests. And Snape sits down on the sofa, rubs at his leg in a way that Harry can’t tell if it’s just itchy or if it’s something worse. “I know you’re great at Potions,” Harry says. And he sits down too. Snape looks at him like he’s the only person in the world, and it’s strange but not uncomfortable at all. “I know your best friend is Lily Evans.” Then he remembers that he’s not here to show off to little Snape. He should be going, anyway. “I know your ma calls you Smoochy Sweetkins.”

Snape laughs, unattractive and loud, entirely unembarrassed. “You’re a shit liar,” he says, and it seems to set him at ease. “What else has your tea goop told you?”

“I prefer the rune stones,” Harry says, faux-haughtily. He finds he wants Snape to keep listening to him, to keep looking at him like that. And he’s only twelve isn’t he? What does Harry remember from being twelve? The basilisk, sure, but not anything small. And Snape doesn’t seem to remember meeting him by the swings either, so who knows. He leans back on the sofa. “I’ve seen great evil,” he says, finally, and he cracks one eye open to find Snape staring at his lips. “Mistakes, and a prophecy, and utter heartbreak. Great skill, and great power. Devotion and dedication. Endless courage.”

“You’re making me sound like a Gryffindor,” Snape complains, and Harry laughs. “And I don’t think there’s a stone for… wait maybe.” He looks at the ceiling like he’s remembering something, half-sings: “The aurochs is proud and has great horns… a creature of the mettle,” he looks back at Harry, a triumphant grin on his face. “Sounds like a rune for Gryffindors!”

“Oh please!” Harry makes it obvious they’re still joking, grinning like a loon. Not that he could stop if he had wanted to. ”Did you not hear the skill and power thing? Aren’t Slytherins supposed to be all about devotion and dedication?” With a roll of his eyes, Snape settles down again. “I see a search for retribution that ends in a search for redemption,” Harry can’t help but say. 

“None of that sounds very fun,” Snape tells his hands, where they fidget in his lap. “Is the prophecy true?”

“Unfortunately...” Harry sighs, “I cannot look far enough in the future to tell you.” Snape looks disappointed. “What would you want, for your future?” Harry asks, because he can’t help himself or his genuine curiosity.

Snape hums thoughtfully. “I suppose I’ve never really thought of it.” He looks utterly trapped between childish confusion and teenage moodiness. “What about you?” he asks Harry, cheeks a little flushed.

“I just want to be able to decide my own life,” Harry says, and it’s all truth. He is sick of everything being laid out for him, so exhausted with having to consider everyone else’s opinions. He wants to be completely selfish in just one thing, and have it not matter for the good of the Wizarding World. “And…” he thinks on how to say this. “There’s a lot I want to learn, and see, and experience.” 

Snape is nodding along. “Yeah,” he says, with more conviction than Harry would have thought possible. “Me too.” Only twelve. He looks at Harry like he’d agree that the moon is indeed made of cheese and - fuck. Harry looks down at the time turner. Not a lot of sand left. This is _not_ the time he needs to be in. “Are you alright?” Snape asks, frowning now.

“I’ve got to - to go,” Harry stammers, standing up on shaking legs, fuck how on earth did he lose track of time like this? Where did all the sand go? He backs away from Snape’s confusion, then further still. His shoulder hits the wall painfully, and he sets off for home. 

***

**1997**

There he is, the door to the Room of Requirement opens, no one in sight, and Severus has Potter by the collar before he can slip away again. “Potter,” he hisses, in the exact same way he’d hissed _you_ an unknowable amount of time ago. “You have _wasted_ the one chance of safety I could give you,” he says, crisp and livid, heartbroken in a way he doesn’t want to think about, “you have _risked_ absolutely everything we have worked for.” Potter breathes shallowly, struggles to get away. Doesn’t meet Severus’ eyes. It makes him angrier and Severus brings his face very close. “DON’T YOU EVER THINK?” he shouts. 

Potter stiffens, then closes his eyes and with a mighty look of concentration that Severus tries to interpret, stills all over. He only realises what’s happening when he’s flung down the corridor, only barely managing to catch himself before he cracks his head on the stone floor. It takes him a second too long to get to his feet, and then Potter has gone.

***

**1981**

He needs to be able to _go there_ so he can have the _option_ of _changing_ something, Harry thinks, hands shaking. He doesn’t dare risking it, not again, and runs to the library. With shaking hands he goes through the rune books, thinking of what Snape told him. Horns. Mettle? He opens a book with a very worn spine, and it falls open on a page that, judging by the stains on the edges, has been consulted by more students than Harry can imagine. _Wealth is a comfort to all_ , it reads. Thurisaz, uncommonly severe, Laguz, venture, Mannaz, kin, he mumbles, adds them up mentally as he fights to keep his hands still. It works. He counts again, still works. He sets the time turner, and spins. Hears angry footsteps, sees dark eyes burning. He tells himself that the next time he comes back he’ll make sure never to see Snape again, never to be looked at like that again.

When he opens his eyes for a moment all he can do is watch in horror as the grains filter down. He points, and knows what direction that is by now. Runs across the lawn to the edge of the school grounds. Points again to be sure, and then Apparates straight to the park in Cokeworth. Sees a poster for a Halloween show from the corner of his eye with a sticker over it: TONIGHT. As he Apparates to Spinner’s End, he realises what that means about today’s date. The evening is falling. He can’t there isn’t time, he needs to find Snape. Point me, he whispers, his wand in one hand and the time turner in the other. When he finally finds Snape, he knows he doesn’t have enough time to explain properly but he tries anyway. Catches him by the shoulders right as Snape looks in horror at his fading Dark Mark, up at Harry, his mouth slack with overwhelming emotion. Down at his arm again.

“Horcruxes,” Harry gasps, shaking Snape a little, as his newly-orphaned self cries somewhere miles away. Knowing Snape will be crying for Lily Evans alone. Wills black eyes to just - look at him. “He’ll be back - ”

“If you’re a time traveler,” Snape asks, too shell-shocked to be angry, to shake Harry off, “then why don’t you save them?”

“Because he has Horcruxes,” Harry says and he thinks he might be crying. “Don’t tell Dumbledore, don’t tell anyone. Destroy them with the Basilisk’s fang.” His face is cupped with endless tenderness, and he wants to lean in and hold Snape as he finds out just how his heart has been broken. “Please,” he begs. They’ll never find the Horcruxes like this, they’re just three teenagers, they need their head start, they need Snape’s help, and everyone keeps dying, he needs - he needs Snape’s help. The world fades around him. _Should’ve asked Hermione what happens when a time turner runs out of sand_ , he thinks. 

***

**1997**

Potter blinks himself awake and immediately frowns at Severus in a way that makes him want to check if he’s not actually naked, until he realises Potter isn’t wearing his glasses. The smell of pumpkin pastries is thick in the air. It’s Halloween and he knows where Harry just came from. 

Severus leans over to the bedside table, which holds Potter’s cloak, and wand, and glasses, and hands him the glasses as well as the potion Pomfrey had left him with. Potter croaks something incomprehensible, and leans back into the pillows with a deep and horrified sigh. Severus knows where he just came from. The headache would be enough, but all the memories fighting in his mind tell him something important happened. He’s spent the last few hours, since they found Potter in front of the dancing trolls - unconscious but seemingly unharmed, trying to sort through his memory. Weasley and Granger have come and been sent away again by Pomfrey, but Severus has watched every twitching eyelid, every shiver, while trying to remember.

Potter croaks again. “The - the locket? The diadem?” Severus nods. Those are gone. 

“The cup,” Severus says, it hadn’t been easy to get into the vault, duplicate the cup, and stab the original, but it has been done. He remembers having to Obliviate Rodolphus. “The ring, the diary.” Dumbledore and Potter himself, respectively.

“Only one left,” Potter says. But that’s not true. Snape shakes no before he can stop himself.

“Two,” he says. He finds himself reluctant to tell the truth, now that it comes down to it, but Potter doesn’t look surprised. When he closes his eyes and turns his back to Severus, it seems like it is time to go. Severus reaches out. Can’t help but hold a bony shoulder for a second. For his comfort as much as Potter’s. He’ll be back in the morning.

Severus is late in answering the summons. He always is. He needs to leave school bounds before he can let it take him, even as a headmaster. He arrives at Grimmauld Place and thinks _stupid boy_ with a horrid hollow fear that makes his teeth hurt. The windows glow sickeningly green.

He steps over Nagini’s body in the hall, a basilisk’s tooth firmly lodged behind her head, and walks into the sitting room where all furniture is gone but a crowd of Death Eaters stands around a slumped body. It reminds Severus of the memories he’d seen of Potter in the graveyard, the ones Potter hadn’t been able to hide when he was sixteen and angry beyond belief. He digs his hands into his pockets, feels his wand in one and the wrapped basilisk’s tooth in the other. There’s more in his pockets, and he tries to think by touching them one by one. A bit of string, a few coins, a glass pestle. He makes the pestle into a Portkey and hopes he is the only one to notice his pocket glowing a little, then steps forward.

“Severus,” drawls the Dark Lord, “my loyal servant. How good of you to have decided to join us. Check on the boy for me if you would?”

He is standing in front of the boy in a second, feels his pulse and wraps his hand around the Portkey in one movement. The flutter must be imagined. He straightens up, still holding the boy, his hand, the Portkey within. 

“My Lord,” he says, and curiosity overtakes his haughty detachment, his eyes flash red and he steps closer to _see_. Close enough that Severus unwinds the cloth, takes the fang, and drives it into his heart. The poison will do the rest. “ _Portus_.”

They land on the floor of the Shrieking Shack, a flurry of robes and elbows, and Severus sits up with a lurch, finally reaches out to touch only to find green eyes blinking at him, a wet pink mouth parting in surprise.

He couldn’t possibly stop himself at the look of it, the remembered taste of golden syrup. Claws his fingers and pants his grief and cries out his relief when he is kissed back, fingers digging through his hair, his robes, teeth clacking painfully as they struggle to close every gap between their bodies.

Finally.

**Author's Note:**

> [Jera](http://www.sunnyway.com/runes/meanings.html)  
> The results of earlier efforts are realized. A time of peace and happiness, fruitful season. It can break through stagnancy. Hopes and expectations of peace and prosperity. The promise of success earned. Life cycle, cyclical pattern of the universe. Everything changes, in its own time. Jera Merkstave (Jera cannot be reversed, but may lie in opposition): Sudden setback, reversals. A major change, repetition, bad timing, poverty, conflict.


End file.
